Navigating the Brand Journey for Tech Startups

by Bronson Ma, Brand Creative Director

Tech startups often face several unique challenges when it comes to branding, especially in fast-paced, competitive environments.

Branding is often thought of as the logo, colors, look-and-feel, etc. for a brand – which is Brand Expression – how the the brand is expressed visually and verbally.

Branding goes deeper than brand expression. But let’s define what brand and branding are first:

👀 Brand – Someone’s perceptions of your business and/or products

💫 Branding – The continued process of shaping and influencing those perceptions

In fact, the Brand Journey starts with perceptions, and those perceptions are influenced (pre-purchase) by your brand identity. And the journey is not necessarily linear in nature. It could be like a ripple effect.

People form perceptions/opinions about your brand based on what they see, read, and hear. To navigtate the brand journey (not an overnight process), brands have to keep the entire journey in mind which looks like this (high-level):

👀 Brand Perception → 💰 Brand Purchase → 💯 Brand Experience → 🧲 Brand Loyalty

For now, we will focus on how to best shape and influence Brand Perceptions. 

Brand Identity is often the first place someone forms opinions about your brand based on what they see, read, or hear. Your brand identity appears within your website, social media, events, and peer-to-peer communities. 

Having a strong brand identity that is clear, concise, and compelling that resonate with your auduences is critical to influencing positive brand attributes for your ICPs (ideal cusomer profiles). But Brand Identity is not just about looking and sounding good on the surface. It must be relatable to your buyers in ways that they clearly understand how your company and/or products can help resolve their greatest pain points.

This is where Brand Positioning comes to play. Being “Know of” is not enough which is Brand Visibility. Being “Known for” must accompany “Know of.” Moving from “Know of” to “Known for” is where Brand Awareness begins.

In future posts, we will walk throught the Brand Journey, and what you can do to get to the end (Brand Loyalty), and stay there.

With over 30 years of experience, Bronson helps organizations — from startups to enterprises — build clear, concise, and compelling brand identities. He often works closely with executive and marketing teams to bring brands to life as their creative brand partner. https://bronsonma.com